Skaggs Companies

The Skaggs Companies were predecessors to many famous United States retailing chains, including Safeway, Albertsons, Osco, and Longs Drug Stores.

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History

Safeway

Main article: Safeway

The first company was based in American Falls, Idaho, where in 1915 Samuel M. Skaggs founded a grocery store and operated it as Skaggs' Cash Store, which was sold to his son Marion Barton Skaggs. It took the name "Cash Store" as it operated only on a cash basis. With the assistance of his five brothers: Pepper Oscar Skaggs, Aron Sylvester Skaggs, Loronzo L. Skaggs, Samuel Olnie Skaggs, Levi Justin Skaggs, Marion Skaggs grew the chain to 191 stores by 1920, and by 1926 it had grown to 673 stores, when it merged with Sam Seelig Company (in a deal orchestrated by Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch to form Safeway). The brothers had set up separate operating companies (Pay and Take It Stores (L.J. Skaggs), Skaggs Cash Stores (Pepper Oscar Skaggs) and Skaggs United Stores (M.B. Skaggs), but these were consolidated in time for the merger into Safeway).

Payless Drug Stores

In 1932, L.J. Skaggs opened Payless Drug Stores in Tacoma, Washington, which soon expanded across the western United States. Some stores were sold to his brother Samuel "L.S." Olnie Skaggs (then an executive at Safeway) along with some colleagues. L.J. Skaggs retained California Pay Less Stores, which became part of Thrifty PayLess, and which are now owned by Rite Aid. The remaining Pay-Less stores were renamed Skaggs Drug Stores in 1948, Skaggs Drug Centers in 1965. In 1969 Albertsons supermarkets and Skaggs Drugs partner to create combination food and drug stores, a partnership that dissolved in 1977, with assets divided.

American Stores and Osco

In 1979 Skaggs Drug Centers acquired American Stores, which had owned Alpha Beta since 1961, and would assume the American Stores name. The company located its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. Combined food and drug stores in Alpha Beta territory were re-branded Skaggs Alpha Beta. In 1984, American Stores would buy Jewel, which had owned Osco Drug since 1961.

Osco Drug also traces its history back to 1915 by S.M. Skaggs in American Falls, Idaho as a cash and carry store. His son Lorenzo L. Skaggs, who had been involved in the predecessor to Safeway, founded the Pay-Less chain in 1937 in Rochester, Minnesota. In 1942, these chains merged with others and formed the Owners Service Company, shortened to Osco. In 1961, The Jewel Companies, Inc. acquired Osco Drug Stores. (It has since merged with Albertsons, and then been acquried by CVS/pharmacy.)

To consolidate the names of some of its subsidiaries under one title with nationwide recognition, American Stores renamed some of its Skaggs Alpha Beta stores to Jewel-Osco in mid-September 1991. American replaced the Skaggs Alpha Beta name with that of Jewel-Osco on all 76 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arkansas. One year later, Albertsons would buy 74 Jewel-Osco stores (some only months before named Skaggs Alpha Beta) in Oklahoma, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas from American Stores. American Stores and its subsidiaries would be acquired by Albertsons in 1999. And Albertsons was acquired by two separate groups in 2006.

Skaggs Foundation

    L.J. Skaggs along with his wife Mary Skaggs founded the Skaggs Foundation.

See also

• Skaggs family

References

• The Skaggs Saga
• Skaggs Foundation website